Traveller Friends

Long considered as "outsiders" or "strangers" in their own country, the Travellers depicted in this book were essential agents in their own depiction; they were the drivers for these cultural representations of their own community. Paul Harrison's photos are beautiful because they are arresting. They show us a "hidden Ireland", one that is often relegated to the societal margins. They haunt the viewer. They interrogate the notion of what it means to be human. The late-twentieth century has witnessed a particular prominence assigned to the discourses of "difference" and "Otherness", discourses which subvert hegemonically-defined representations and demystify what was once simple domination and reification. Representations of cultural minorities, whether literary or visual, play a profound role in how groups such as Irish Travellers are defined and treated by the non-Traveller community. Essentialist notions of migrants and other traditionally-nomadic peoples have a long and complex history. The history of Irish Traveller is no different. For hundreds of years they have en-numerated the projective function of the "Othering" process, a form of rejection and marginalisation that was the institutionalization of ideas and images.